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INTRODUCTION
If Indian philosophy is studied in British Universities, it is rarely the philosophy department that offers it. (There are honourable exceptions!) A particularly unfortunate consequence of this is that the study of Ancient Philosophy generally focuses exclusively on the history of Greek Philosophy and leaves aside the more ancient history of Indian and the equally ancient history of Chinese philosophy, let alone the more controverted issues surrounding the existence of philosophical thought in ancient Egypt.
If early Indian philosophy is addressed in the academic discussion of Ancient Philosophy, it is usually in terms of the possibility that Indian thought may have influenced the development of Greek philosophy. Such an influence certainly could have existed: the Persian Empire included Indians in its Eastern Satrapies and Greeks in the cities on the coast of Asia Minor; the means of transmission clearly existed. Tantalising parallels exist, and in many cases the Indian texts are demonstrably earlier.
The passage in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, for example,
"As from a fire kindled with wet fuel various [kinds of] smoke issue forth, even so, my dear, the Rig Veda, the Yajur Veda ..... aphorisms, elucidation, explanation, sacrifices, oblations in the fire, food, drink, this world, the next world, and all beings are all the breath of this Infinite Reality ...." [B.U. IV, 5, 11]
finds an echo in Fragment 67 of Heraclitus of Ephesus:
"God is day-night, war-peace, fullness-hunger; He undergoes alteration in the way that fire, when it is mixed with spices is named according to the scent of each of them."
Another fascinating parallel is provided by the "Gospel of the Demons." [Ch.U. VIII, 8] The Chandogya Upanisad contains a fascinating passage which purports to describe Prajapati's instruction of Indra, Prince of the Gods, and Virocana, Lord of Demons. [VIII.7 ff.] The passage begins with Prajapati's description of the Self:
"... free from evil, old age and death, grief, hunger and thirst, its desire is for the true, its intention is the true - one should seek it, try to understand it. One who finds and understands that Self attains every world, every desire ...." [VIII.7.1]
Gods and demons (asuras) alike heard his account of the Self. Indra, the King of the Gods and Virocana, the King of the Demons both came independently to Prajapati and for thirty-two years lived the life of brahmacarins, until at last Prajapati asked them what they wanted. They explained they both sought the knowledge of the Self he had described."
Prajapati's response is brief and simple:
"The person seen in the eye is the Self ... it is immortal, fearless, it is Brahman." [VIII.7.4]
The answer is simple and direct, but the two divinities manage to misunderstand it.
"What about the person in water or the mirror, who is that?" they ask.
"The same is to be perceived in every case. Look at yourself in a vessel of water, and then tell me what you do not understand about the Self." [VIII.7.4 - VIII.8.1]
He is not really deceiving them: it is indeed the same Self that is disclosed in the gaze of the person when we look him in the eye and in the image of ourselves we see in the mirror: the gaze that meets me when I look into the mirror is as much a sign of the presence of the Self as is the gaze of the person I meet in the street.
The divinities do as he says. They look into the vessel of water.
"What do you see?"
"Lord, we both see ourselves, complete, a likeness even to the hair and nails."
Prajapati is pointing to the Self as the ultimate subject of all experience - when we look someone in the eye, we see the person looking back; the gaze that confronts us is a sign of the presence of ATMAN as the reality that is the ground of the person's consciousness and subject-hood. The two divinities fail completely to understand him: they ask about the person we see in the mirror, confusing the reflection, the image, the appearance with the reality of which it is the sign. Prajapati tells them to look at their own reflexions and tell him what they see: they tell him correctly that they see an image {pratirupa} of themselves, but show absolutely no sign of awareness of the difference between the image and the Self it points to.
Seeing the error his disciples have fallen into, Prajapati tries again:
"Do yourselves up, put your best clothes on, make yourselves tidy and look into the vessel of water ..... what do you see?"
He is inviting them to discern the difference between the image -that has now changed- and the Self that is beyond all change. They simply compound their original error, telling him
"they are both just as we are, all done up, in our best clothes and tidy ...."
At first sight the answer Prajapati makes to this is a surprise:
"That is the Self, the immortal, the fearless, that is Brahman."
Is he lying to them? No. The reality behind the two persons who are speaking to him is the Self; the reality the images in the water point to is the Self. The error arises not from any falsity in what Prajapati says, it arises from his disciples' confused thinking that leads them to misinterpret what he says.
Indra and Virocana depart, contented in heart, at peace with themselves, "knowing" the body is the Self. Prajapati is saddened by this.
"... they depart not having perceived the Self, not knowing the Self. Whoever follows such a doctrine - whether gods or demons - will perish!" [VIII.8.4]
The Demon-Lord is thoroughly at home with the doctrine he has drawn from Prajapati's teaching. He teaches the Asuras that one should serve oneself, seeking to make oneself happy.
"The Self is to be worshipped, the Self is to be served. Worshipping the self, serving the Self, he gains both worlds, this and the world beyond."[VIII.8.4]
Virocana's teaching is fascinating: if we read exactly what he says, it is true!
"atmaiveha mahayyah atma paricaryah, atmanam evaiha mahayann atmanam paricarann ubhau lokav apnotimam camum ceti."
Prajapati could well have said exactly the same: the disaster is that the Demon Lord thinks the body is the Self, and that belief turns Virocana's teaching into a proclamation of hedonism.
"And this is the Gospel of the Demons: they beg garments and ornaments to deck out a corpse and think thereby to attain the world beyond!" [VIII.8.5]
The Gospel of the Asuras, is familiar to students of Greek Philosophy: the doctrine that makes the individual's physical pleasure the end and goal of life was expounded by Aristippus, a disciple of Socrates, and by his grandson of the same name. Their school, the Cyrenaic school, ended with the extraordinary figure of Hegesias the Death-Persuader, who lectured in Alexandria in the reign of the Pharaoh Ptolemy Soter. The Death-Persuader taught that physical pleasure is the only purpose and point to life - but the more we experience a given pleasure, the less we enjoy it, the older we become, the less we enjoy physical pleasures, the more we give ourselves up to pleasure the more our health fails. Doomed to increasing frustration, what point, he asked, is there in living? As a result of his teaching, literally thousands committed suicide and the Pharaoh ordered him to silence.
The same dialogue in the Chandogya Upanishad contains another passage that has an interesting parallel, this time in Plato. Prajapati says to Indra:
"... this body is mortal, always held by death. It is the abode of the Self, which is immortal and incorporeal. The embodied self is the victim of pleasure and pain. So long as one is identified with the body, there is no cessation of pleasure and pain. But neither pleasure nor pain touches one who is not identified with the body." [Chh.U. VIII,12.]
This is remarkably similar to the argument Socrates makes in the "Phaedo" that the body is the root of all evil. [Ph.66,c-e]T
"And the body fills us with passions and desires and fears, and all sorts of fancies and foolishness, so that, as they say, it makes it impossible for us to think at all. The body and its desires are the only cause of wars and factions and battles .... we are slaves to its service .... and in fact we perceive that if we are ever to know anything absolutely, we must be free of the body and must behold the actual realities with the eye of the souls alone."
A central theme of the "Phaedo" is that true philosophy is preparation for death, the rejection of the body and its pleasures in order to know truth.
Close as the parallel is, like the multitude of others that could be adduced, it is not so close as to prove any direct textual dependance of the later Greek text on the earlier Indian text. They are parallel, and there could have been an influence: nothing more is certain. It would be interesting to know for certain if there was a direct influence of Indian thought on Greek: it would be interesting, but the existence of such an influence should not be a required condition for our acknowledging the value of early Indian philosophy.
THE ORIGINALITY and VALUE of EARLY INDIAN PHILOSOPHY
Aristotle says that " ... it is on account of wonder that men now begin to philosophize, and that they originally began to philosophize,..." [Met. 1,2] Like all other non-utilitarian disciplines this first happened "in the places where men first started to have leisure." [Met. 1,1] He is thinking of the wealthy cities on the coast of Asia Minor where the first Greek philosophers lived and taught. Philosophy began when men had leisure to wonder, as did at least the upper classes in the wealthy Greek cities of Asia Minor
The sources of Indian philosophy are significantly different. Already in the Rig Veda we find the first impulse to philosophical thinking, especially in the hymns of the Tenth Book. The Hrinyagarbha Hymn, 10.121, if scholars are right in seeing its last stanza as an addition, raises questions as to the identity of the life-giving all-ruler, rather than simply offering praises to a specific god. The Creation Hymn, 10.129, is famous for its doubt:
"Whence this creation has arisen - perhaps it formed itself, or perhaps it did not - the one who looks down on it, in the highest heaven, only he knows - or perhaps he does not know." ["The Rig Veda" Tr.Wendy O'Flaherty, Penguin Classics, 1981, pp.25-6]
The Creation Hymn expresses a degree of theological doubt that would be surprising in any religious work of the ancient world: in a compendium of hymns used by priests in the sacrificial rites, it is evidence of a quite remarkable degree of religious and intellectual sophistication.
The Brahminical tradition of liturgical commentary recorded in two different stages in the Brahmanas and Aranyakas furnishes a second impulse to philosophical reflection and analysis. There are many different aspects to the tradition of liturgical commentary. One however is of crucial importance for the development of the Indian philosophical agenda; namely, the use of the sacrificial Rite, the Yajna, as a cosmogram, onto which the diverse aspects of the cosmos are mapped, in order to derive a basis for interpreting and understanding them. The Rig Veda already offers the concept of Rta, the cosmic order: the Brahmanas and Aranyakas offer speculative attempts to unravel crucial aspects of that order, by using the Sacrifical Rite as an interpretative map.
It is in the Brahmanas also that the concept of Brahman is developed, so that the term "Brahman" becomes a cypher for the ultimate essence of being, the final basis of reality.
The traditional rites of the Vedic cult involved sacred riddles and ritualised verbal combat. From these developped a whole, complex tradition of combat by means of chains of questions, and formal disputation. The Upanishads contain many interesting examples of the former; the Nyaya Sutra is in part a handbook of the latter.
Meditation of different kinds was practised from a very early period in India. The Upanishads use the term "upasana" to refer to a form of discursive meditation where a particular array of phenomena is viewed mentally through an image drawn from religious thought or practise, which acts as an interpretative catalyst. Other forms of meditation are hinted at in the discussions of the nature of the Self. The data of both kinds of meditiation contributed significantly to the development of the philosophical agenda, especially since Indian tradition refused to limit its focus to the normal waking consciousness, and always has addressed dreamings states, dreamless sleep, yogic trance-states and the state of liberated consciousness as well.
The initial context of the earliest Indian philosophical writings we possess in the Upanishads, is the relation of Teacher and Disciple and the encounter between rival teachers. From the Upanishads onwards, intellectual and verbal combat has been an essential element, even, as will appear later, a structuring element in Indian philosophical culture.
Indian philosophy has religious roots and never lost its religious colouring. In that, it resembles Mediaeval European philosophy more closely than the philosophy of the ancient Greeks. The Brahminical culture was hospitable to philosophical activity, provided it accepted formally the authority of the Vedas. Indeed, if we include all the movements that developped before and in the same period as the classic Greek philosophical schools, we should have to take account not only of the Scriptural Vedanta (the earlier Upanishads,) but also of Samkhya and of unorthodox schools, early Carvaka philosophy, early Jain and Buddhist philosophy, as well as the first stages of political, social and legal theory.
Even on the conservative datings of the early Upanishads accepted by most modern scholars, the earliest Upanishadic texts recording philosophical dialogues predate the earliest Greek philosophical texts by two hundred and fifty to three hundred years. It is in these ancient texts, in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad and the Chandogya Upanishad that we find evidence of philosophical insights which are crucial to the developoment of the whole tradition of Indian philosophical analysis, speculation and debate. Here are twelve, chosen not as an exhaustive list, but as a set of useful examples of the kinds of insight that emerged in the earliest period of Indian philosophical activity:
1. LIBERATING KNOWLEDGE versus MERE INFORMATION
When the Divine Rishi Narada approaches the sage Sanatkumara seeking instruction, the sage asks him what he already knows. This is the standard question a Teacher asks of a prospective disciple: discerning the disciple's present state of knowledge and understanding is an essential prerequisite for an adequate programme of learning. Narada answers, listing the (encyclopedic) range of texts and topics he has studied. He then adds a crucial qualification: "But, Lord, with all this, I know only words: I do not know the Self. From men like you I have heard that the one who knows the Self overcomes sorrows. I am one afflicted with sorrows..." [Ch.U. VII. 1. 3]
In the Astika tradition of philosophy, Liberation, the radical transformation of conscience that puts an end to bondage and suffering is the ultimate aim of all philosophical enquiry. There is a sharp distinction to be made between knowledge that is mere intellectual furniture, mere information, and the knowledge that transforms consciousness. Ultimately, for the Astika tradition, all truly philosophical knowledge valuable because it can help transform consciousness. This distinction in the significance and role of different modes of knowledge, and the identification of Liberating knowledge as the focus of philosophical enquiry is itself a significant, if controversial, contribution to philosophical anthropology.
2. Use of PHILOLOGICAL ANALYSIS to ENABLE PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHT
There are many examples in the early Upanishads of the use of philological analysis to facilitate the understanding of terms and concepts. Typically the analysis is somewhat imaginatively adventurous, but even the more extravagant examples of analysis - for example, the derivation of "satyam" from "sat" (interpreted as the immortal,) "ti" (interpreted as the mortal) and "yam" (interpreted as that which binds the two together, [Ch.U. VIII, 3, 5] or Uddalaka's derivation of deep sleep ("svapti") from gone ("apita") and his own, ("svam") so that svapti means "gone to his own," - function as mnemonics, as base for meditative reflection, and as an incentive to further etymological investigation. In recent European philosophy, philological analysis has received recognition as playing a significant role in philosophy.
3. Use of EXAMPLE and METAPHOR as ARGUMENTS
The use of examples and metaphors as arguments is common throughout the history of Indian philosophy. The Pramana theory of both Nyaya and Vedanta darshanas acknowledges both upamana and anumana (both inference and analogy) as sound sources of knowledge, and the Nyaya Sutra makes a careful distinction between the two.
The dialogues of the Upanishads show important early instances of the use of examples as arguments. As part of his instruction to Svetaketu concerning his true Self, his father Uddalaka [Chh.U. VI.13,1-3] says to him:
"'Bring me a fruit of yonder banyan tree.'
'Here it is, Lord.'
'Break it.'
'It is broken, Lord.'
'What do you see there?'
'These very tiny seeds, Lord.'
'Break one open.'
'It is broken open, Lord.'
'What do you see there?'
'Nothing, Lord.'
His father said:
'From that subtle essence which you do not see there, my dear, grows this whole banyan tree. Believe me, my dear.'
'All that exists has its Self in that which is the subtle essence. That is the Reat. That is the Self. You are that, Svetaketu.'"
Uddalaka's teaching technique is skilfull. He involves Svetaketu in a pattern of activity designed to raise questions in the young man's mind: he does not merely talk about the banyan seed or pick one up and point to it; he gets Svetaketu to look at the fruit, to open it up, to extract the seed and then to break open the seed. At that point, when his son's attention is sharply focussed on the broken seed, he points to what Svetaketu does not see, the subtle essence within the seed. He then names and identifies that subtle essence, presenting it as that from which the whole banyan tree grows, as identical with Atman, with the Real, as that which Svetaketu himself truly is.
There is no step of deductive inference in this argument. Its power derives not from the logical necessity of valid deductive inference, but from the force of the experience of the nothing-we-can-see within the split banyan seed as an image of the nothing-which-is-nonetheless-the-true-Self-of-all.
Equally powerful examples are used by the Royal Sage Ajatasatru when he wishes to explain to Gargya Balaki the way in which awareness withdraws from the outer parts of the body to the space within the heart.
"As the spider moves along the thread, or as tiny sparks fly in all directions from a fire, just so come forth from this Atman all organs, all worlds, all gods, all beings..." [B.U.II.1,20]
The two examples are significantly different: they actually offer alternative ways of understanding the dependence on Atman of the multiplicity of things that constitute the World. Each example enables a mapping onto an intelligible pattern that grasps the imagination. Each example is a concrete and captivating image that offers access to understanding. A deductive inference leads us to a conclusion that follows logically from the premisses of the argument; the kind of philosophical example at issue here leads to a moment of realisation, an intellectual perception of the nature of what is imaged, by analogy with the nature of what is offered as analogue, example or image.
4. ANALYSIS of STATES and MODES of CONSCIOUSNESS
The early Upanishads establish a tradition from which Vedantin philosophical practise has never deviated. Serious attention is paid to the state of dreaming and to the state of deep, dreamless sleep as well as to the waking state. The most famous exposition of the different states of consciousness is in the Mandukya Upanishad, but the dialogue of Prajapati, Indra and Virocana in the Eighth Section of the Chandogya Upanishad and the dialogue of Garya Balaki and King Ajatashatru in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad II,1 provide a much earlier exploration of the theme.
The Upanishadic discussions of the states and modes of consciousness explore the epistemology of the different states, physiological concommitants of the different states, the metaphysics of the objects present to cognition in the different states and above all the principle of unity which holds the different states of consciousness and their data together as aspects of a single totality.
5. EXCAVATION of the PURE SUBJECT
The discussion of Yajnavalkya with his wife, the philospher Maitreyi, recorded in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [B.U. II. 4 & IV. 5] presents the Self as the pure subject, the knower, which cannot be described in terms of any possible array of positive attributes - which would, of course, make it an object of cognition rather than the pure subject.
This analysis is of value as marking out one extreme position it is possible to hold. Whether or not Yajnavalkya's account is true, it offers an approach to the analysis of the self that demands philosophical commentary.
6. ANALYSIS of PHYSICAL ASPECTS of CONSCIOUSNESS
Several Upanishadic dialogues focus on the physiological aspects of the different states of consciousness. Uddalaka teaches his son Svetaketu the dependence of mental operations on nutrition by getting him to fast from all food save pure water for fifteen days. [Ch.U. VI. 7] On the sixteenth, Uddalaka questions his son about passages of text he has studied: Svetaketu cannot answer. Once he has eaten food, he finds he remembers once more what he could not recall when fasting.
King Ajatashatru's teaching of Gargya Balaki [B.U. II. 1, 15 ff.] begins with the King's showing him the different effects of merely speaking to a person who is soundly asleep and touching the sleeper. He then proceeds to offer an account of how, in sleep, consciousness "absorbs the funtions of the organs .... and rests in the space in the heart." The account is, of course, speculative, but it is concrete evidence of the seriousness with which the earliest Indian philosophers addressed the problem of analyzing the body's role in the life of consciousness. This is particularly important since the Indian tradition was to produce what is virtually a cybernetic model of mental operations both in Nyaya and Vedanta schools, manas, the mind-organ, being seen as the gate or filter which orders the items of data produced by perception and alows Buddhi, the intellect, to access them. Manas is the data gate and Buddhi the central processing unit in this account.
7. DISTINCTION of SUBSTANCE from CONDITION
In the first section of Uddalaka's dialogue with his son Svetaketu, he says:
"Just as, my dear, by knowing one lump of clay, all that is made of clay is known, the difference being merely a matter of verbal classification, while the reality is that it is all clay,
Just as, my dear,... by one pair of nail scissors all that is made of iron is known, the difference being a matter of verbal classification, while in reality it is all iron ..." [Chh.U. VI.1]
The distinction he is making is an important one. He is pointing to what Aristotle would much later call "material causality," the relation of dependence between things made of a particular kind of stuff and that kind of stuff, the relation of dependence that links a silver candlestick with silver, a meerschaum pipe with meerschaum. He is not saying all that exists is made of the same stuff, or even of a given range of kinds of stuff; Uddalaka's claim is that understanding the stuff of which any given thing is made yields understanding of everything else made of the same stuff - understanding of what the various things that exist ultimately are, they are clay, stone, iron, gold, &c. organised into a variety of shapes and forms, and named with a variety of names.
Any such account leaves out of consideration many other issues relevant to a complete understanding of what things are - the function, the form, emergent distinctive properties, compound and complex natures, for example. Nonetheless, the insight Uddalaka offers to his son is an important one; he is pointing to one of the fundamental elements in the analysis required in order to understand the nature of things. There are two valuable aspects to the argument Uddalaka presents: he points to identification of the stuff of which things are made as a fundamental issue in understanding those things, and he characterises the distictions we make amongst the different kinds of things made of the same stuff as a matter of verbal or linguistic classification. On the latter point he is telling only part of the story, and as they stand, his comments on the subject are inadequate and inaccurate. They are nonetheless important, in that they make a distinction which merits serious philosophical examination. While it may not be the case that every distinction between two gold objects is reducible to a matter of verbal classification, but it is nonetheless important to discern whether any of the distinctions are of that kind, i.e. we need to discern what elements of our classification system are merely conceptual or linguistic structures devoid of any sound metaphysical underpinning.
8. ARGUMENT to demonstrate the existence of SOUL
In Uddalaka's intruction of Svetaketu, he makes use of a powerful example.
"If, my dear, one struck at the root of this tree, it would bleed, but live; if one struck at its middle, it would bleed but live; if one struck the top of it, it would bleed but live. Pervaded by the soul {jiva,} the tree stands firm, drinking in its nourishment again and again ... But if the soul leaves one of its branches,the branch withers .... if it leaves the entire tree, the entire tree withers. .... Bereft of the soul, the body dies; but the soul does not die ..." [Ch.U. VI. 11]
The importance of this argument is that it shows what is being talked about when soul-language is used. Uddalaka points to the difference between the living organism, which can survive injury, take nourishment, recover and flourish, and the dead limb, disconnected from the vitalising principle that is the source of the life of the whole. That this life-soul, the jiva, is subsequently identified by Uddalaka with the Atman makes the argument parallel that advanced by Plato in the "Phaedo," which identifies the psyche, the life-soul, with nous, the intellect.
9. Significance of the GAZE
In European philosophy attention to the philosophical significance of the gaze as disclosing the presence and existence of the person, the self, the other, is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the teaching of Prajapati already referred to we find what must be the first instance in the history of philosophy of attention to the gaze as a means of realising the presence of the self.
"Prajapati said to them, "The person that is seen in the eye, that is the Self. This is the immortal, the fearless," he went on, "This is Brahman."
"Lord," they asked, "which is he, the one perceived in water or the one seen in the mirror?"
"The same one," Prajapati replied, "is perceived in each case." [Ch.U. VIII. 7, 3-4]
The ensuing dialogue makes it quite clear that Prajapati is pointing his disciples to see the person manifest in the gaze, while they are at cross purposes with him, and are looking at the reflection of the body, perhaps thinking there is an actual image of the body in the eye, or of the way we are reflected in the eye of the person standing in front of us. Whatever the specific origin of their misunderstanding, both Indra and Virocana believe that their Teacher is pointing to the body. Prajapati attempts to dispell their misunderstanding by getting them to look at their reflections in a vessel filled with water, and then to dress themselves in all their finery and to look again. He is trying to point to the self that gazes at the reflection and at the reflection of that gaze: initially they both draw the conclusion he is pointing to the body as the self, a conclusion that leads Virocana to preach the Demon Gospel of sensuous hedonism to the Asuras. Indra, realising the body lacks the attributes of the Self Prajapati had described ("... sinless, unaging, immortal, free from sorrow, hunger or thirst, whose desire is the real, whose thought is the real ..." [Ch.U. VIII. 7, 1]) returns to his teacher seeking to correct his false view.
Advaitin tradition offers a different interpretation of this passage. St.Shankara sees Prajapati's initial comment ("... ya eso'ksini puruso drsyat 'esa atmeti" ) as referring to that "which is perceived as the Seer by the Yogins who have withdrawn their eyes and other organs, and are free from impurities ..." [Swami Gambhirananda's tr.] This is frankly a perverse and extravagant interpretation of what Prajapati says, but then that comes as no surprise to anyone familiar with Shankara's practise as a scriptural commentator. There is absolutely nothing in the text to support Shankara's reading; on the contrary, it is in direct conflict with what Prajapati actually says when he accepts that the same person can be seen in water or in a mirror. Shankara produces a convoluted account of Prajapati's subsequent instruction to save him from the charge of dishonesty, an account that is completely unneccessary if we accept the more obvious meaning of the text, that Prajapati is talking about the gaze and not about some insight the Yogin attains, meditating with closed eyes.
Concrete evidence against Shankara's reading is provided by a brief parallel passage which occurs in the Satyakama's instruction of Upakosala:
"He said: 'The person that is seen in the eye, that is the Self. This is immortal, this is fearless, this is Brahman. That is why, if one drops melted butter or water in the eye, it flows away on both sides." [Chh.U. IV.15,1]
It is evident that Satyakama is speaking here of the physical eye, not of some yogic insight. He sees the power of the Self which is manifest in the eye as causing the melted butter or water to flow away, keeping the eyes free from being affected by either. There is no obvious reason to think that Prajapati has something different in mind.
10. NON-ACTION as CAUSE
A sophisticated insight into the nature of causality is contained in an unlikely passage of the Chandogya Upanishad.
"Now, when the Brahma priest does not break his silence from the start of the Prataranuvaka Shastra to the beginning of the Paridhaniya hymn, they truly sanctify both paths, neither is injured." [Ch.U. IV. 16, 4]
This is part of a brief discussion of the role of the Brahma priest, one of the four priests central to the Soma Rite. Each of the other priests has his own specific role to play in the complex sacrificial rituals; the Brahma priest, however, who must be learned in the Vedas, stands watching the rite, ensuring everything is done correctly. If the other priests carry out the Soma Rite correctly, the Brahma priest does nothing; if they make an error he must intercede to correct things in so far as this is possible, but the Rite will remain defective.
What is philosphically interesting in this passage is the author's evident attribution of causal efficacy to the Brahma priest's non-action. The Brahma priest does nothing during the Soma Rite, and his doing nothing "sanctifies both paths." It is clear that non-action can indeed have a significant effect - there are immediately accessible examples: the letter of acceptance my friend does not post when I ask him to, and his not posting it causes me to lose a job; the salt I do not add to the soup, and my not adding it causes it to taste insipid; the wedding I do not attend, and my not attending it causes my fiancee to terminate our engagement. Indeed, we possess a repetoire of expressions (failure, ommission, neglect &c.) to denote a variety of modes of significant non-action.
11. The doctrine of MORAL CAUSALITY
We find the doctrine of Reincarnation in the early Upanishads. Interestingly, what seems to be its earliest appearance occurs in the dialogue between Gautama Uddalaka, the father of Svetaketu, and King Pravahana. [Ch.U. V. 3ff.] Svetaketu had been unable to answer the King's questions about the fate of human beings after their deaths. Returning home, he recounts the questions to his father, only to find that Gautama Uddalaka too is unable to anwer them, and sets off to seek instruction from the King. Pravahana reluctantly agrees to teach him, but tells Gautama that the knowledge he will offer him has never before been known to any Brahmin, it is knowledge known only to the Kshatriya.
The knowledge King Pravahana imparts to his unlikely disciple concerns a number of topics, including, interestingly and surprisingly, the meaning of certain details of the rituals the Brahmins perform. An important element in the knowledge he gives him concerns the fate of human beings after death, and the doctrine of Reincarnation.
"Those whose conduct here has been good, will rapidly attain a good rebirth - birth as a Brahmin, birth as a Kshatriya, or birth as a Vaisya. But those whose conduct here has been evil will rapidly attain an evil birth - birth as a dog, birth as a pig, or birth as a chandala." [Ch.U. V. 10, 7]
The passage goes on to describe continual rebirth as small creature, gnats, flies and suchlike, presumably, which is the fate of those who are guilty of the five terrible sins, (stealing a Brahmin's gold, a Brahmin who drinks wine, adultery with one's guru's wife, killing a Brahmin, consorting with one guilty of any of the other four sins.)
Doctrines of this kind, which offer a moral account of reincarnation or rebirth, are familiar in the later history of philosophy. This passage in the Chhandogya Upanishad is interesting as perhaps the oldest such text. It is important as marking the starting point of Indian theorizing of the theme of moral causality. Significantly, the fate of the dead is not presented as depending on the gods, but simple on what they have done. This is equally true of the speculations about the different paths followed by those who were forest-dwelling ascetics and the village-dwellers who have performed meritorious works, sacrifices, public services, acts of charity. The concept of moral causality as it is worked out in the karma doctrine of later Astika and Nastika teaching has its roots in this passage of the Upanishads. The teaching of Pravahana offers one approach to the grounding of morality: it presents a means of interpreting morality as a sound investment policy for one's personal future. The teaching of Pravahana does not in any way constitute a moral theory or even the outlines of one; but it offers an interesting, if, from the point of view of a Western philosopher, a speculative, approach to the integration of conceptions of morality with the mapping of personal existence.
12. APOPHATIC METAPHYSICS
Philosophy and theology is generally done in the kataphatic mode, by, that is to say, the construction of systems of statements that are believed to be either true or false. A serious problem arises, however, if a systematic attempt is made to construct an intelligible theoretical account of the transcendent or the transcendental. What is, by definition, beyond all possible understanding, and what is presupposed by all possible understanding, are alike irrefrangibly resistent to theoretical analysis and intelligible explanation. The apophatic tradition established a place for itself in Western philosophy through Plotinus's speculations on the One, and in Christian theology through the work of pseudo-Dionysius and Gregory of Nyssa. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad there are two dialogues in which Yajnavalkya used apophatic discourse to expound the metaphysics of the Self and of Brahman.
The first example of apophatic discourse is probably the most famous single saying in the entire Upanishadic corpus; it is Yajnavalkya's characterization of the Self as "neti, neti," (not this, not this.) [B.U. IV. 5, 15] This is, of course, not the whole of Yajnavalkya's teaching; though if it were, he would still have merited a high place amongst philosophers for the directness and originality of his approach.
The dialogue takes place as Yajnavalkya is about to retire to the forest. He approaches his wife Maitreyi to discuss the division of his property between her and her co-wife Katyayani. Maitreyi, a woman of truly philosophical temperament, challenges him with a question: will this wealth, she asks, make her immortal? And Yajnavalkya answers her frankly: it will not, with great wealth she can live the life of the rich, but she will still die. Realising this is her last opportunity to ask him anything, and believing her husband possesses the secret of immortality, Maitreyi asks him to reveal it to her. He agrees to do so, telling her, "as I am expounding to you, seek to meditate on it." [IV.5.5]
Yajnavalkya's advice to her shows how seriously he takes Maitreyi's question: he is not simply going to offer her an intellectual account, he tells her to meditate on it so she can assimilate, dwell on, live what he is about to disclose to her.
"He said: it is not, indeed, for the husband's sake (kamaya) that the husband is dear, but for the sake of the self that the husband is dear ....." [IV.5.6]
Whatever is dear, he tells her, wife, sons, wealth, the worlds, the Vedas, beings, the totality, it is dear not for its own sake, but for the sake of the self.
"The self, indeed, Maitreyi, is to be seen, heard, reflected on, meditated on, and when the self is indeed seen, heard, reflected on and known, then all this is known."
Exactly what this odd passage means is perhaps made a little clearer in what Yajnavalkya says next:
"Brahminhood deserts the one who knows Brahminhood in anything other than the self ...... the worlds desert the one who knows the worlds as anything other than the self .... This Brahminhood, this Ksatriyahood, all these worlds, these gods, these Vedas, all these beings, this all, are the self."
{IV.5.7}
The Self, he seems to be saying, is the totality, everything else is a part or aspect of the Self. Whatever has value for us has value because it is part of the Self, and the person to whom it has value is only capable of valuing it because she too is a part of the Self. The Self is the totality: when the Self is known, everything is known.
This is an odd way to talk of the self. The statement that the Self is the Totality is startling. It seems to violate all everyday rules for the use of the term "self." Yajnavalka surely does not mean to imply that the Self is merely the Totality of whatever exists, the aggregate of all the vast variety of things that make up reality. Perhaps he means rather that the Self is one and stands at the root and origin of all existence, so that everything that exists flows from it, expresses the Self and ultimately is a part or aspect of the Self. Perhaps, as Shankara would argue, he means to lead us beyond our relative, conventional understanding to the unconditioned reality of Atman/Brahman, the only reality existing eternally beyond the illusions of everyday consciousness.
His discourse continues with a sequence of images: [IV. 5. 8-10] it is impossible, he says, to grasp the "bahyan sabdan" of the drum, the conch, the Vina, unless we grasp the drum and the drummer, the conch and the one who blows it, the Vina and the player. We cannot fully understand the sound produced, the tone, the note of the instrument unless we trace it back to its source in the instrument and the player. We must see the sound precisely as the product of the player's playing the instrument, as the result and expression of the player's action on the instrument if we are to understand it. Hearing the sound alone apart from its source and origin we hear a mere sound; it is the causal pattern, the pattern of action from which it emerges, that gives it significance.
Everything, Yajnavalkya tells Maitreyi, the Vedas, the Puranas, the commentaries and discourses, sacrifices and offerings, food and drink, this world and the other, all things have been breathed forth by this Great Being, the Self. He compares this breathing forth to the way in which a fire kindled from damp fuel produces smoke of many kinds. [IV.5.11]
Yajnavalkya has already taught Maitreyi that the Self is the Totality, he now teaches her that everything that exists comes from the Self. The Self is the sole source and origin of the whole Universe, even of the Vedas themselves.
The dependence of the Vedas on the Self is an important issue; Yajnavalkya is implicitly asserting that Atma-vidya is beyond and above scriptural knowledge and Brahminical learning. The Vedas proceed from - and therefore draw their being and their authority from the Self. The Vedas are at the service of Atma-vidya, not vice-versa.
Not only is the Self the source and origin of the whole Universe, it is the point of convergence of all reality. All that is comes from the Self and goes to the Self. As the waters flow to the Ocean as their meeting-place, as all sounds come to the ear, all odours to the nose, as all desires converge in the mind, all knowledge in the heart, as all the Vedas come together in speech, [IV.5.12] ..... as a lump of salt is a homogeneous whole, a taste-mass so is the Self a homogeneous whole, a mass of awareness. {prajnana} [IV.5.13]
The images Yajnavalkya uses seem to point to the following conclusions:
[a] the Self is the source and point of confluence of all cognition. All knowledge, all experience, all action, all discourse depends on the Self and finds its unity in the Self.
[b] the Self is an undifferentiated unity,
[c] the distinctive characteristic of the Self is awareness, just as its taste is the distinctive characteristic of salt.
What Yajnavalkya has to say next, Maitreyi finds quite beyond comprehension.
"Arising from these elements, it vanishes back into them. After death there is no consciousness."
Faced with his wife's reaction, Yajnavalkya comments,
"I have said nothing baffling. This Self is indeed imperishable, it is by nature indestructible." [IV.5.14]
What is it that arises from the elements and vanishes into them? It cannot be the Self, that would simply contradict everything Yajnavalkya has already said. Presumably he expects Maitreyi to understand he is referring to the individual living person, the human individual, Yajnavalkya, Maitreyi, each one of us.
The last section of Yajnavalkya's teaching focuses directly on the nature of Atman: all perception of another, all knowledge of another arises only where there is dvaityam iva, duality, as it were. When all has become the Self, what is to be seen and by what means? - what is to be thought of and by what? Who is to be known and by what? Yenedam sarvam vijanati, tam kena vijaniyat? Sa esa neti nety' atma.
"How is that to be known by which all is known? This Self is not-this, not-this."
The Self is incomprehensible, indestructible, unattached, unfettered, beyond all possibility of suffering and injury.
"Now you have been instructed, Maitreyi," says Yajnavalkya, "And this indeed is eternal life. Having said this, he departed to the forest."
Poor Maitreyi, we may guess, was left behind in a state of intellectual and emotional confusion. She sought from her husband the words of eternal life, the teaching of immortality - and he has given her precisely that - but the immortality he offers her is an impersonal immortality, the immortality not of Maitreyi, but of the Eternal, immutable Atman, which is not even accessible as object of its own knowledge!
Yajnavalkya uses kataphatic discourse to take his philosopher-wife as far as he can towards the intuition of the nature of Atman, the pure subject. At the last moment there is nothing he can tell her or show her, he is driven beyond the limits of descriptive discourse; he can only deny that Atman is identical with any object whatsoever, it is "not this, not this."
Another example of apophatic discourse occurs in the second dialogue between Yajnavalkya and the woman philosopher Gargi. This conversation takes place towards the end of a prolonged word-battle in which Yajnavalkya is challenged by a succession of sages, but survives their questions and remains unconquered. Gargi alone, the one woman to face him, pushes him to the limit. In their first encounter she attacks him with a swift succession of questions each of which explores deeper into the ultimate structure of the world.
"Yajnavalkya," she said, "if all this is woven like the weft upon water as the warp, on what is water woven like a weft?"
"On air, Gargi."
"And air, on what is it woven?"
"On the sky, Gargi...." [B.U. III. 6]
Yajnavalkya answers all her questions, and Gargi turns each of his answers into a new question, until at last she asks what is the warp onto which the World of Hrinyagarbha is woven like the weft. At this point Yajnavalkya evades her question with a warning:
"Do not question too much, Gargi," he said, "lest your head fall off ...."
He warns her she is at the limits of the knowledge possible even for the most penetrating human intellect. Gargi falls silent, anf Uddalaka takes up the questioning. Uddalaka questions him about the inner controller, and Yajnavalkya offers him an impressively full answer.
Gargi now returns to the fray with two questions.
"Yajnavalkya, on what warp are woven that which is above heaven and below the earth, which is heaven and earth and everything between them, and which, they say, was, is and will be."
Yajnavalkya answers her: it is akasha (space or ether).
Gargi now faces him with her second question.
"Yajnavalkya, on what warp are woven that which is above heaven and below the earth, which is heaven and earth and everything between them, and which, they say, was, is and will be."
And again he answers: it is akasha.
"And the warp on which akasha is woven?"
Yajnavalkya seems impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Everyone knows the answer is Brahman - but if Yajnavalkya simply answers "Brahman," then he will be overcome, the answer is banal, it offers no challenge to Gargi nor to the assembled Brahmins. It is not enough in the word battle to answer the opponent's question with a correct answer; the answer itself must play a tactical role in the battle, it must grasp for victory, not simply avoid defeat. If, on the other hand, Yajnavalkya attempts to explain Brahman, to offer the Brahmins a theory of the nature of Brahman, he will be greeted with derision. Brahman is above comprehension, beyond understanding, no description can capture the essence of Brahman, language literally fails in the attempt. If Yajnavalkya offers no answer save "Brahman," he will lose because he fails to challenge his opponent, if he offers a definition or an explanation of Brahman he will lose because he has attempted the impossible.
Yajnavalkya does neither. He stands at the limit of human understanding and uses apophatic discourse to do what kataphatic cannot. Unable, as every language-user is unable, to tell the assembly what Brahman is, he points to the reality of Brahman by telling them what Brahman is not:
"That, Gargi, the knowers of Brahman call the Imperishable. It is neither gross nor subtle, neither long nor short, neither red nor moist; It is neither shadow nor darkness, neither air nor akasha; It has neither taste nor smell, neither eyes nor ears, neither tongue nor mind; It is not radiant, has no life-breath, nor mouth, nor measure, no outside nor inside. It eats nothing, and none eats It ....."
Having used apophasis to establish the reality of his knowledge of Brahman, Yajnavalkya proceeds to offer the company a discourse on the dependence of all things on Brahman:
"Truly, sun and moon are held in their places under the mighty rule of this Imperishable. Heaven and earth are held in their places under the mighty rule of this Imperishable ...
Whoever in this world offers sacrifices, practises austerities, even for millenia, without knowing this Imperishable, discovers all these deeds are perishable....
... Gargi, this Imperishable is never seen but is the Seer .... is never known but is the Knower. There is no other seer but This One .... no other knower but This One. This Imperishable is the warp on which akasha is woven, Gargi."
Yajnavalkya does not abandon positive, rational discourse and take up apophatic discourse
instead; he uses apophatic discourse at the one crucial moment where positive description fails, at the moment where he needs to indicate Brahman's transcendence.
CONCLUSION
The 12 elements identified above are not by any means an exhaustive list, and they are all drawn from the dialogues of two of the earliest Upanishads. It is worth remembering that many other aspects of Indian philosophy also antedate Plato and Aristotle, other Upanishadic texts, the earlier stages of the Samkhya philosophy, the Carvaka materialism, early Jain and Buddhist philosophy, as well as the earliest stages of the social, political and legal thought we find formulated in the later Arthashastra and Dharmashastra. Indian philosophical tradition attained a rich pluralism from a very early period. Perhaps the examples offered are enough to establish that the earliest stages of Indian philosophical thought off much that is subtle, sophisticated and intellectually challenging. It is quite inappropriate that such philosophical insights should be seen as footnotes to the history of Greek thought.
(This paper was originally given as the 1993 NEHRU LECTURE at Manchester Metropolitan University)
